Rural Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting   3/21/2023

I call the meeting to order.

I'd like to make a motion to allow those to draw the line and participate in today's meeting.

Can I get a second?

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Motion carries.

Nobody from the public?

Stoking again?

Thank you.

There's a typo opening again, too.

That's okay.

It was bright in the list, and it looked mean.

All right, 24 rule work program.

Alright, so one of the things that we do every year is that we enter and develop a work program that communicates back to what we are going to use with the rural transportation, what's called the state planning and research funding that we are given to the rural work program.

So every year we are given 72,000, well we're not given 72,000, I don't know, we're given I think it was 58,000, whatever, 80% of 72,500

by the state that has a 20% local match-up applied to it to conduct planning initiatives in the non-urbanized portions of the PDC area.

So that includes Louisa, Fluvanna, Nelson County, Greene County, and then the non-urbanized portions.

In FY23, our rural park program highlights included the completion of the Iron Crossroads Gateway Plan, which is a long-term project that we were excited to be able to wrap up supporting the Regional Trans Division Plan.

We have started, and we'll talk about this a little bit more today, talking about some of the bicycle and pedestrian priorities for the rural areas.

And then we also use those to provide technical support for Grand athletes.

So we might use these to support top applications, SMART SCALE, then SMART SCALE cycles, or potentially other things like we helped Nelson County prepare a grant for the GAP program.

So those kinds of things.

The other big thing that we did that we were successful at, and that we'll talk about a little bit later, is we prepared the grant application for the regional state's referral programs.

We were able to use some of those SPR resources

to get that project funded.

So in FY24, we looked through what we had that we needed to be able to support.

And so this is what staff has drafted as the proposed activities to undertake for the next upcoming business year.

The items on the top under the administrative section, those are pretty standard, you know,

required development of the work program, preparing the committee and the information sharing.

And then the line items under the one-company web planning and local technical assistance, those are also pretty standard, but we do change kind of what the big programming activities are.

And so one of the things that we're doing is we're asking both the unified planning work program, which is the MPO's work plan, as well as the rural work plan to support the TJPDC staff

Staffing to develop this comprehensive safety action plan.

So this will supplement what was awarded through the Safe Street for Road for All grant.

We'll continue to provide support for the development of SMART SCALE applications.

And then we have also put a little bit more in the RTP, the Regional Transit Partnership.

TEM is travel demand management.

and the bike pen support line item to also support a required strategic plan for our commuter assistance program.

So that's the RideShare program that we operate that supports basically any alternative transportation mode other than single occupancy vehicles.

We're required to do a strategic plan for that.

And so we're providing additional support beyond what we have requested through a technical systems grant through both the Rural Work Program and the FKO Work Program.

So this was prepared for the commission meeting, so I'm just going to not get back to that one.

But basically, you all are an advisory committee.

The official policy board for the Rural Work Program is the Thomas Jefferson planning district commission itself.

So basically we're asking for your feedback to let us know if there are any activities or revisions that you would like to see or just most of the proposed work activities.

I think Curtis,

Well, I guess probably one of the things we skipped over early on is that Curtis, the new Thomas Jefferson, the new district mission transportation planner, and Lucinda has obviously an opportunity to work on transit, but she's going to be supporting Curtis moving into the role of being the administrator of this world technical advisory committee.

Yes, congratulations on the funding.

We'll be hearing more about it.

All righty.

Does anybody online have any questions?

I'll use that.

So we have to share this screen.

Thank you for your mentorship.

So I'll share screen.

Hello everyone.

And again, today I'm going to be presenting on bicycle industrial and infrastructure prioritization.

So in the fiscal year in the rural work program, the TJPDC had allocated some resources towards this task.

And so that's what I'm going to do today.

Basically, there's the junction area of the bicycle industrial plan in 2019, which the TJPDC completed with the Yvonne Environmental Council.

And that plan looked at all the localities in our region to determine where we could build new infrastructure or improve infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians that would improve their safety or allow access to key destinations.

And in front of you, you'll see maps of all the rural localities and recommendations for much land.

If you want to reference it, it's in front of you.

These are two of the localities here, Fluvanna and Greene.

And one thing you'll notice is a lot of the rural localities have these rural shared use roads as the primary recommendation.

So a lot of recommendations for the rural locality as far as rural shared roads, which are basically efforts to improve those roads such that they're a little bit more comfortable and safer by surface.

And that includes two primary recommendations.

Firstly, you can improve signage.

Secondly, you can pave and widen shoulders.

So the goal here is bicyclists would still be driving on the road.

They wouldn't be a bike lane, but it would be a little bit safer than what's currently there, ideally.

And a lot of the recommendations also focus on recreational activities because a lot of the bicycling that goes on in these rural communities is centered around recreation and tourism.

And during the development of this plan, they actually looked at Strava, which is a map used by recreational bicyclists to determine what roads are already being frequented.

And that kind of informed how this was developed.

And again, here's two more counties.

It's like a map and it's impressive.

It is to determine if recommendations from the general scenario budget plan are still relevant or if they need updated.

And then second to that is to figure out how we at the TJPDC can assist you all in implementing and prioritizing these bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

And that can take a couple of different forms from our perspective.

So firstly, there's the idea of developing new projects.

And by this, I mean, potentially looking to see what projects we can find that weren't necessarily included in the justice scenario by the pet plan.

And second to that, we can also assist with prioritizing projects.

So that would mean looking at what's already recommended in the plan and the environment of the justice scenario by the pet plan and determining how we want to allocate resources, what projects make sense to focus on first,

And part of that would feed into this therapy scope, locating funding.

What projects could we presumably help with getting funding for?

Which ones seem like they could be competitive for certain grants?

So I kind of want to just open this up for, I'm just going to narrate the feedback as to what would be helpful for you all based on that.

So, it's always difficult.

I've said this for five years.

It's always difficult for a rural county, right?

Because, you know, for Louisa, for example, I have two towns.

I have three separate governments.

And, you know, I have two towns over here in this meeting today.

And they're not connected.

That leaves a lot of primary, secondary roads in the county that are about 45, 45, 55 miles an hour that you have logging trucks.

all kinds of stuff.

So the challenge has always been is how do you take the urban map landscape and create an actual, real 500 square mile rural pipeline?

Especially when you don't, it's like, we don't even have trails.

We just tunnel together if we want to.

So I just wanted to share that aspect from a rural mentality is

Well, I think that's what we're asking you though, is we have to start somewhere, right?

If we want to improve this infrastructure and if you eventually want something like a regional bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, we need to start having a conversation.

So I think right now we're asking

If you had to pick one project to start or two projects to start, do you need help identifying these projects at this point?

Or do you know what those projects are and you need help sort of figuring out how do we move these from conception phases to implementation phases?

Or do you know your project priorities already?

So for Louisa, I think it's a little bit of both.

I think that perhaps getting into town and the county in the same room and going, okay, towns, what do you need to complete?

Something like a start over to complete an actual white hat work within your locality, where does a sidewalk start in?

And then the three of us together, do we have the ability or the want or drive to connect the town?

and what are the old roads that we know due to, because in Louisa we actually have communities that are golfers.

You have to apply for that status and be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

You know, are there communities on the lake that are combined to other communities?

And I agree that you're starting somewhere and I think perhaps getting into town for Louisa, the town and the counties in the room and finding out what the infrastructure we have now is, which I know that TJPDC's done a little work on last year about holding the towns

So that's just my standpoint.

I don't know about other localities.

Like, I don't know whether the bikes are going down 151 and, you know, going for one brewery or another brewery and then hopefully putting the bike on an Uber and then getting the last brewery.

I think a lot of the bikes in that area are more recreational.

That being said, we're in the middle of VDOT doing the route and then doing a border study.

So we're actually having our first public meeting I think the first week of April.

I know they're looking at the SMART SCALE application that I funded at the roundabout, the potential of a Viking pedestrian addition there.

We're also in the comprehensive plan.

So I think a lot of this and these recommendations are going to come out in that process.

But the things that are listed here for Nelson at least are all things that have been discussed and are still in play.

I think what you're trying to figure out is what do you need from us, more assistance planning, like a specific corridor or planning for connections within an identified growth area or something like that.

Or a part of it, just helping you all say, these are the projects, we feel like these projects are the right projects to start with and maybe we need to understand what the opportunities might be to implement some of these in order to help make decisions so we could kind of try to figure out, you know, how can we align certain types of projects with certain types of funding opportunities.

to sort of show how forward we could do something like that.

This is just kind of an open-ended thing.

Yeah, I think for Nelson, at least, we'll probably have more

In May is when we're reviewing our transportation land use chapters.

I mean, I don't know whether just having a map based off the study I did last year, like this is the sidewalk network in both towns.

But again, I'll go back to you, perhaps getting the three localities in one room and going, what do we have?

What do we want to do?

And that way, if there is a desire to do something, we could get your assistance, whether there's mapping or reaching out to landowners or whatever it is in order to make an actual trail happen.

I mean, as someone who's a recreational myself, I'd love to have

bike trails, horse trails, bike, all kinds of stuff.

I just pull up and park and go for a little while, but we just don't really have that at this time.

So I agree with you.

There may be some overlap with the Drive Outdoor Grant as well.

Yeah, the Outdoor Recreational part, I think is good stuff.

I think our focus is more on things that will be both recreational and transportation services but I think it's helpful to know because in some cases especially if you're looking at a really long inter-regional rail or trail system they kind of go in and out of different types of

Trail Development.

We do have some VDOT folks on the call.

Hey, Sandy, I'll jump in.

I've had my hand raised.

I'll go ahead and lower that.

So good discussion everybody.

Sorry, I couldn't be there.

I'm going to put the video on.

So just a couple of ideas.

I know we have the Safe Streets and Roads for All program that's coming up.

And with that safety action plan, there might be some tie-ins and some kind of like cross planning that we could do between those two plans and identifying priorities for your regions.

Also, particularly, I would keep track of the Pedestrian Safety Action Plan and VTRANS.

So VTRANS is actually going to be updated this year.

They've kind of started that process and I've spoken with the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment.

They're actually working on a separate bike and pedestrian VTRANS needs analysis that's going to kind of focus

on the safety and accessibility portions for bicycle and pedestrian.

That was a bit lacking a little bit in B-Trans.

We've always had the pedestrian safety part of it, which is the pedestrian safety action plan.

But really the only thing kind of lacking was the bicycle safety and accessibility.

So that's going to be a big emphasis and really kind of keep track of where those B-Trans needs are identified.

to help you kind of hone in on where your projects might feasibly be built.

And then also think about the cost of the project, the readiness of the project, make sure that you have your right of way, you have your cost estimate,

All of that is good to go.

So you kind of want to pick projects that maybe would meet some kind of or would meet readiness needs or have a better readiness need when it comes for a SMART SCALE or transportation alternatives program.

The other thing I would think about with prioritization is really thinking about equity.

Thinking about serving underserved communities.

This is going to be a big emphasis with programs like Safe Streets and Rights for All, like Reconnecting Communities pilot program.

Just really think about, you know, what communities have not seen a whole lot of investment in any kind of bicycle pedestrian programs and then where are you seeing

Yeah, we're really just kind of at the initial phase where we wanted to see what would be helpful and then we'll take the...

I'm going to speak for Curtis right now.

I think this is really helpful feedback as far as helping us sort of develop a framework.

You know, I think the question we have was, are the localities in a position where, you know, they already have identified priorities or are we still in a place where we need to help develop a methodology for determining what those priorities are?

So I think...

That's a big question that we started with and I think it's sounding like maybe we need to support the identification of the priorities based on some of this regional information and then we can start looking at how can we move from identification of a need to the project readiness.

I think for us at Albemarle, right now we're working on obviously getting over our project and stuff great and sorted out.

We also have Prenosh Trail coming up whenever we hear back from DOT and get that whole grant finalized.

But I think we have the identification stuff pretty rolled down.

We have a lot of projects that's happening along with VDOT.

I think a little part of it will just be looking for wasted funding through SMART SCALE, TA,

I mean, Sharon, right, it's like the UT grant as well.

It's gonna be our biggest thing because we didn't get the Reconnecting Communities Program grants, unfortunately, but I think even if we had got it, I think one of our biggest issues is we don't have any staff time to manage all the modules.

Other than your planning and development, I mean, it should be requiring that there be a biking trail through a 12 hundred acre solar project, but it'd be in the middle of nowhere.

So I'm just, I'm trying to think really outside the box of how do we start somewhere, right?

And a lot of times, even solely on a commercial site, we don't want anybody on the property to begin with that for probability reasons.

So, you know, there are some localities that have existing trails, and we're very fortunate, and there's others that

For Fluvanna, I know it's always one thing, you know, as like doing something as like on the side of recreational trails, like there's a lot of railroad right-of-way people on the team that I've been looking into, like pricing and figuring out.

I talked to the DCR and did the safe rails to trails and all that.

It's, they all, the match is like,

It's not the same kind of impact as a SMART SCALE or an ATAP.

You have to do everything up front to get a reverse for it.

So it's super challenging for small rural counties to be able to front that money in time for something that may not get approved.

So on the recreational side, trails and everything like that.

But I'm looking at this, we have the bike path 76 from west to east through a bunch of counties here.

And that's a good thing.

I'm just trying to figure out like where would the funding be for these kind of big projects, you know, widening or like who can pay for that really is a great idea.

It's cool, we would like to do it.

But more realistically, I can see maybe Zion's being more of a thing to focus on as a starting point between like Louisa and everything because there's already some work going on in there.

Like how much more is it to ask to put in shared use or bike paths

You know, there's a ton of space, even going across to 1564, linking those two places, and potentially going down 15 to the top of my road.

I don't know, for us, I know it's going to come down a fun day.

That's the challenge, is like, does it make sense to tack these on as big projects as the other side, or does it make sense to try to get them off the ground or not?

I just feel like, here's a cool idea,

but I, you know, gee, I'm just like cringing at the thought of trying to ask for like $20,000 to buy a small piece of right away.

Well, I think, so what it sounds like to me then is that there's probably a couple of different types of resources that you all need based on where your individual locality is.

But maybe, maybe we just need to sort of do a,

Start with what David said, look at some of the existing data and start overlaying that maybe with what's already in the plan and having individual conversations with you all about kind of where you're at and maybe if we can determine what the next steps are for individual follow-up with each of the localities.

And VDOT as well, of course.

You want me to go ahead and share the news?

Alright, so just to let everybody know, yesterday was my last day with VDOT Lynchburg District Planning.

As some of you are aware, I'll be moving over to Central Office of Richmond.

I'll be taking over as the statewide bicycle and pedestrian planner.

So effective March 27th.

So congratulations.

Any other discussion about bicycle pedestrian priorities?

Next up, Safe Streets and Roads for All.

Well, that's really exciting because we were able to work with all of the localities and do what is really truly going to be a regional initiative to improve the safety outcome

I'm not following all of the safety information that's coming out of all the localities, but I know that where I live, I've been hearing kind of it feels like a lot more fatalities are occurring than it feels like have in the past.

So I think that's something that probably we all have some instances that are coming to mind when we talk about the needs are really safe.

some more significant and proactive approaches to improving roadway safety.

If you all recall, I don't know that I gave the same presentation to all of your boards, but what we did was we applied for one grant for all six jurisdictions to develop a comprehensive safety action plan and review both regional and individual locality components to this.

So we're trying to

Do the biggest return on investment as far as streamlining a lot of the data collection and analysis and organization of the project.

But we also want to make sure that at the end of this process, that each locality has a set of strategies and priorities that make sense for them.

So this will be a little bit of a process to get parents to make sure that we are including a scope that will

our company and everyone's needs, but we're really excited to be able to develop this process for you.

So based on the notice of funding opportunity and the grant requirements, there are eight different components that are going to be required that come out of these comprehensive safety action things.

The first is that there's gonna have to be a leadership or there's the expectation that there'll be a leadership commitment to adopting specific desired outcomes.

That's either going to be a zero

Deaf and serious injuries related to roadway crashes initiative were a specified target related to what they want the crash rates to be that's reduced from today.

So that's part of what will be developed throughout this process.

There needs to be an established oversight group to develop, implement, and monitor any progress on the plan.

So that's something that the TJPDC will be able to do both through this committee and through the, they all go in a few committees.

We're going to conduct a comprehensive safety data analysis.

I think that I communicated to you all that part of what I think what will be helpful in this grant is that we're also working with VDOT's Highway Safety and Improvement Program to do some of this data analysis outside of the grant.

So we're going to get a little bit of a head start on getting some of this analysis and then we'll be retaining consultants through the USPOT grant.

in order to sort of do some additional analysis based on the information that would get from VDOT.

But there has to be a robust public and stakeholder engagement that also has to entail an inclusive and representative process that feeds into the development of the plan, has to include how the processes and policies are going to be evaluated, and then we'll get to where we are identifying the priorities and strategies that are going to be

that are going to be focused on in order to achieve the safety outcomes that we're desiring.

And then like I said, there will be ongoing monitoring and reporting that the TJPDC can help facilitate.

So the benefits of this comfort and safety action plan is that we'll have a really good understanding of crash locations and the contributing factors

and that is going to include systematic and recurring factors.

It's also going to look at the infrastructure related issues as well as driver behavior.

So things like are they wearing seatbelts, are they driving under the influence, are they young or senior drivers, those kinds of things.

The evaluation will include its multi-modal nature.

As David mentioned, it will include looking at iPad infrastructure and how many questions involve iPad users, as an Android by users.

It will allow us to develop much more close working relationships with other stakeholders that are not always included as part of these things.

So we're used to working with each other pretty regularly.

We don't always get public safety personnel or maybe some of that education.

folks in or the health department, those kinds of places.

So this is an opportunity for us to really think broadly about who are the stakeholders that need to be having a conversation together, thinking about how we can take multiple types of approaches, not just focusing on one type of approach individually, but thinking about how they all work together in order to reduce the fatalities and serious injuries along our roadways.

And then this will also help us identify pipeline of projects that can be submitted for applications through SMART SCALE, but also for maybe future federal funding through the implementation grants that pipeline for the safety rewards for all top revenue sharing and high safety improvement programs.

As I mentioned, this will be a multi-jurisdictional project, so I have reached out to each localities planning director to

Start setting up some meetings just so we can make sure that we understand what needs to be included in the scope for your project.

And then we will be developing a RFP to solicit some consultation or to solicit a consultant who will support the development of the plan itself.

The total grant amount is just under 1.1 million and nearly half of that was indicated to go towards stakeholder public engagement.

And then, like I said, the PDC will provide a lot of the ongoing monitoring and reporting back in order to make sure that the main focus that you all need to be focused on is really as far as the process of the engagement with your stakeholders and your public.

So far, we have started attending the grant agreement meetings with the US DOT, so that's going to help us prepare for the release of grant funding.

We have had a project scoping meeting with VDOT's Highway Safety Improvement Program staff and then we have some meetings scheduled with our grant coordinator from the FHWA to review the grant agreements.

I sent out those requests to review the project scope of each locality and then basically once the grant funding is released we have a two-year performance period so we'll need to complete the

Safety Action Plan within two years.

So we want to move forward to have our procurement ready to go.

So once the grant funding is released, we'll be able to start working with it as well.

So it's pretty quickly.

This is probably going to be a pretty significant topic of conversation within this group.

This is one of the opportunities we have where you all are already at the boat, where we can really talk about

Next steps and process and making sure that we're moving forward in a way that is getting you all what you need and also share information across.

So I anticipate that those will likely be a recurring conversation that we have with this committee, especially once we get the actual project underway.

But any questions at this point?

Do you know if this will have any play in SMART SCALE?

I think it could have something on SMART SCALE.

I can let the VDOT folks might want to respond to that.

I mean the main focus of this is for the Safe Streets and Roads for All program.

Basically any local government or regional entity can submit an infrastructure project once the safety action plan has been developed.

So starting in round two, round three of this program, kind of the idea was to start to identify potential infrastructure projects for that specific program.

And the key point there is readiness.

You know, there are some discussions about having studies and so forth complete prior to submittal for SMART SCALE.

However, we have seen advancements in particular projects within a study that meet the readiness requirements.

So there's always some opportunities there.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was going to chime in, Sandy.

Yeah, if there's something that we identify early, we could also advance it

There was also the update on safety analysis with VDOT, is that separate?

Yeah.

So we're finding out that we're losing a precious member of our panel here to downtown Richmond.

Okay.

Oh, sorry, I was on mute.

I didn't know if Michael's there or not.

Yeah, we're working with the localities right now to identify possible tap and revenue share projects.

Most of them are up north.

Michael has been coordinating that effort moving forward.

So we've got several located.

I don't know what he's got on a list down south off the top of my head.

We're also working with other programs, the pipeline,

Next round of pipeline, but again, those are mostly inside the MPO area and then up in the Northern part of the district.

We don't really have any studies per se in the Southern part of the district beyond those.

We'll be looking to gear up for a SMART SCALE round six and putting together material that we can reach out to the localities with so that we can start identifying possible locations or work on

Applications to resubmit from last round and have some further discussions regarding SMART SCALE.

So that should be coming later this spring, early summer.

Are you hearing anything about like every time we do a round, there's a couple of bullet points that's changed.

They are looking at doing a lot of stuff possibly.

We don't know.

They're doing a full audit of the program that was initiated by the secretary's office.

So I don't know what's going to come out of that.

We are looking at all the different areas and a lot of different things regarding the program to see where we can make tweaks to it.

But those aren't flushed out yet.

So there'll be more to come on that as we move forward.

But yeah, they are going to make some changes.

Yeah, I've given a bunch of comments too.

So there's a lot of stuff and that's what they want so that we can make it better for the future, especially for the rural areas.

I know Rick and David down in Lynchburg, they have the same issues that we're having in the rural areas, getting stuff

developed and funded through the program because it's really competitive.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Every time I feel like SMART SCALE is just around the corner.

Every time we measure as you're stable pole.

All right, well, in that case, let's go around the table.

I'll go ahead and start.

Louisa County, like everybody else is hiring.

We have several positions open.

Inspector, Affirmant Technician, Building Inspector, that's all your friends, that's your family.

Vion Town Center Amendment did pass recently.

They owned and added about 50 homes.

I'm not the case manager for it, but

So I would say for the most part, it's just as busy as it will be for me.

I guess we're also hiring at the town, I think, for like the Walgreens in your hand or two.

So you can entirely know.

Right now, what's happening?

Oh, we're pretty good playing.

We went to the board that two weeks ago.

and we're going to be implementing like a pilot program for them to close off originally from Joseph and the other end is Dardown Park and the other end is 2 Dick here at 3 Bridge and that's going to be closed off and just gates ran out and see how that closed and then we're going to obviously kind of goes on and identify funding and kind of see what change we're going to make to make the actual park itself more than just like

Road, and Nathan Warren's been a nice place for people to go walk and play.

Right now, Jessica is actually at Route 20, shared this path, meeting with Ryan Drake, doing just like preliminary kind of stakeholder information, looking at the site, and that will be going from, I think it's Quarry Road in the city, down to Dairy Barn, so North is out, under the underpass for 64, trying to identify how we can, we just shared this path over there somehow, which

Other than that, we have been approved for a state breakfast school walkabout bean grant, which is for Woodbrook Elementary, and that will be just kind of walking around with the VDOT state breakfast school people and identifying kind of what is lacking for pedestrian and bike infrastructure for the kid to go to school there.

And then we'll get a report from the state breakfast school eventually, and that will kind of help us

Look at future projects that we can look at for funding, kind of improving that player in general.

Secondary six-year plan, we want to work with that.

Fairly assume that, to most people, a lot of it is payment of rural roads, rural rest of the program.

We are working in the priority list that should be coming out.

Hopefully by summer, we can push it back because we're busy doing other things.

And then any big, quite increasingly, full ID residences that pass the board continuously,

I think we can go now and have I think 525 units right next to the old ID overpass over about 250 bypass.

So that'll be a big project coming along.

And that'll be also a lot more transportation things happening with old ID and ID growth in general in that area.

A lot of them are old.

Yeah, and I'm busy sometimes.

A good job security, I suppose.

So at Jaunt, we just let our TDP improve our board of that.

It has been on the Jaunt website.

Another thing we're going to be implementing is automatic passenger cars, not buses.

We're getting ready to have a work session on cluster style or conservation style subdivision development.

So if anyone has anything relevant, feel free to send it my way.

Well, it was recommended by a planning commissioner.

There's a name associated with it, so I've been

Conservation or subdivision?

Okay.

I think there was a freeze number.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, we were like, you know, the different, like, agri-subdivision, stuff like that, for kind of cool things.

I feel like they would make sense in the counties, right?

Right.

I'll pass some of that stuff along.

It's about the same.

We've been doing conflict and solar for whatever.

I did go to Guglielm for their solar siting and kind of overview of their solar and that was interesting.

We're working on a siting agreement now with CEP.

I think they're also based out of downtown New York and just right down where they're hiding.

And then, like I said before, we're talking about the trails and that's kind of just been my side project that we're working on, just trying to figure out how that process works.

Because it's just hard to buy money and it's self-expensive.

That does remind me, not Nelson, but Amherst just had a solar project recommended for them.

It's interesting.

I think I pretty much covered everything I had to talk about.

I don't know if Rick has anything else.

Nice.

I said there's almost a thousand comments.

I have not read through them.

Two people who took the survey put school buses as their main means of transportation.

We're looking forward to a breakdown chart, one of our main aims for that.

And also, I think, believe it or not, I think it would be a good like five to ten minute presentation on how you're able to get that many people involved.

I don't know if you're standing outside the breweries taking notes, but that's a lot.

Definitely would like to see a breakdown of that data.

Speaking of which, does anybody have any ideas for the next meeting?

I don't know, David, if you might be willing to comment on the alternative field site.

I don't know what we would like to, yeah.

Speaking of which, I've been asked to present the problems.

So I gave a presentation a day ago last year at the Virginia Association of Zoning Officials.

I've been asked to speak to some staff and planning commission down in the Roanoke area.

I've still sorted that out, but if my presentation is well received, then I might get that later on as well for looking for topics.

The last time I geared it more towards staff and drug enforcement, and this time I'm gearing it more towards staff and planning commission members, which is good.

So we have targeted zip code.

We basically targeted to Twitter, Facebook, social media platforms by zip code throughout Nelson County.

Most of the respondents are in the Nellie sport area.

But beyond that, it was in WSET, it's been in local news, and also it was sent out to all the business owners on the corridor.

Yeah, I'm not really looking forward to the first public meeting.

Last time we had this study back in 2013, I think we had 130 people at the first meeting and about 150 in the second.

Yeah, really.

I finally got my microphone working again.

You know, to no surprise, I have a position that's open, so anybody that has some GIS strength and some planning experience, that's on the market now, closes on the 7th.

Thank you, everybody.

I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of that requested.

So it's definitely more than willing to do it.

Yeah, so I have my apartment lined up.

I'm moving Thursday, actually.

So I'll be in the Manchester area.

It's a new use development.

It's got a food hall on the ground level, a brewery there.

It's like a two minute bike ride to the office.

So pretty exciting.

If you wanted to work that exactly for EPA, it's what I've already talked about.

Oh, the current, yeah.

Good evening.

Motion to adjourn.

All right.

Everybody, thank you for coming out.

Appreciate it.